The Chicontepec Basin is a petroleum system in Mexico located north-east of Mexico City, covering an area of around 3,800 km² in the states of Veracruz, Puebla and Hidalgo. Several oil fields have been discovered in that area since 1926. A major field was discovered in 1973 but contains extra heavy crude which due to special refining needs is considered unviable at this time. Since that time, tiny amounts of oil have been produced^[1]. While the reserves are overwhelmingly very heavy crude, pockets of lighter oil, as well as natural gas, are also found in the basin^[2]. Nickname: Location of Mexico City in central Mexico Coordinates: , Country Mexico Federal entity Federal District Boroughs The 16 delegaciones Founded (as Tenochtitlan) c. ... Veracruz is the name of a city and a state in Mexico. ... Puebla is the name of a city and a state in Mexico. ... Hidalgo is a state in central Mexico, with an area of 20,502 km². In 2005 census the state had a population of some 2,345,514 people. ... Year 1926 (MCMXXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 1973 (MCMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday (link will display full calendar) of the 1973 Gregorian calendar. ...

Chicontepec Basin is believed to hold 33 billion barrels of oil in place, with 17.6 billion barrels recoverable. These are probable, but not proved reserves. In 2003, PEMEX said it could take total investment of $30 billion over 15 years to fully develop Mexico's oil and gas reserves in the Chicontepec Basin. The project would require drilling 13,500 wells in the basin, much more than the total number of oil wells now producing in the country ^[3]. This is situation is interesting wells would be numerous and small. It would be necessary to get permission to drill from the communities that these wells would be in. Fortunes might be made by private firms in the pre-exploratory negotiating phase. 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... ISO 4217 Code MXN User(s) Mexico Inflation 3. ...

In March 2006, Mexican President Vicente Fox announced that Pemex would be investing $37.5 billion US dollars over the next 20 years on the oil fields of Chicontepec. It is hoped that this will boost the fields' output to 1 million barrels per day. Pemex's chief executive estimates that 20,000 wells are to be drilled in order to exploit this field. Article March 2006 : ← - January - February - March - April - May - June - July - August - September - October - November - December- → Fijian Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase announces that the 2006 Fiji general elections will be held in the second week of May 2006 from the 6th to the 13th. ... Vicente Fox Quesada (born July 2, 1942) was the President of Mexico from 2000 to 2006. ...

In addition to being economically and technically challenging, the basin's developement also faces political difficulty, because the areas overlapping it are quite densely populated^[4], including by native Americans like the otomi tribe. Despite these difficulty, Pemex urgently need production from Chicontepec to offset the rapid production decline in its main offshore field, Cantarell. The Otomí are a Native American people living in the central plateau region of Mexico. ... Cantarell Field or Cantarell Complex is the largest oil field in Mexico, located 80 kilometers offshore in the Bay of Campeche. ...

Notes and references

1. ^ About 2500 b/d in 2002 according to [1]
2. ^ World oil, Nov. 2001 Vol. 222 No 11
3. ^ Sergio Solache, 17 February 2007, Arizona Republic, claims that "Pemex now has more than 5,000 wells in production"
4. ^ [2]